Tales From Jabbas Palace (Kevin Anderson) by Unknown Read Free Book Online Page B

the kitchen.
    The rancor keeper put a big hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I like you, Porcellus,” he said. “You’ve been a good friend to me, letting me take a couple scraps for my baby…” He jerked a thumb at the mass of steaming meat and meat by-products that occupied a good two-thirds of the table. “I don’t want to have to throw you in there with him. So I thought I’d drop you the word before Bib Fortuna gets down here to talk to you about it.” Malakili gathered up the corners of the oilcloth upon which the offal was heaped, and lugged it out the door in a trail of dribbled juice.
    Porcellus said, “Thanks,” though his mouth was too dry to produce actual sound.
    “His Excellency is most displeased.”
    “Entirely without reason, Your Worship. It is wholly the result of a regrettable misunderstanding.” Porcel-his bent almost double in a deep bow and hoped Bib Fortuna, Jabba the Hutt’s vile Twi’lek majordomo, wouldn’t notice the ransacked boxes and canisters which covered every horizontal surface in the kitchen, the result of a frenzied search for anything that might have caused the Bloated One’s unprecedented discomfort.
    Since many of the delicacies which had gone into the Hutt’s omelettes, roulades, and gtouffges over the past years were inedible by any lesser species, the search hadn’t been an easy one—the chef was still wondering about the goatgrass he’d used the previous evening as a stuffing for the gamwidge, and the small unmarked red canister of unidentifiable paste whose contents had been used to top yesterday’s chocolate ladybabies, The Twi’leks small eyes narrowed still further; in the kitchen’s mephitic light they had the appearance of dirty glass.
    “You know how solicitous our master is about his health.”
    Neither of them was going to speak the word “poison,” of course.
    “Absolutely,” groveled Porcellus, reflecting that between Jabba’s wholesale consumption of triglycerides, cholesterol, and alcohol—never mind substances less identifiable—and indescribable sexual practices, the Hutt would scarcely need poison. Porcellus was still trying to deal with the concept that a Hutt could be poisoned. “I scarcely need to assure you that throughout my term of service here I’ve accepted nothing but the finest, the most healthful, the tastiest ingredients to lay before His Excellency’s discriminating palate. I am at a loss to understand this most distressing development.”
    Arms folded, Fortuna drummed his long nails gently on his own biceps.
    “Should the situation continue,” he said in his soft voice, “explanations for it could be devised.”
    “Here!” Porcellus whirled, lashed out indignantly with the dishtowel in his hand. “That’s the master’s!”
    Ak-Buz, commander of Jabba’s sail barge, backed quickly away from the little electric fence around the beignets, dropping the pair of long-nosed nonconductive machinist’s pliers he’d used to poke through the current. A snarl contorted his leathery face—the only expression, as far as Porcellus had ever been able to ascertain, of which Weequays were capable—and he ran out of the kitchen into the hot sunlight of the receiving bay, shoving the stolen beignet into his lipless mouth as he went.
    “They seem to think this place is a charity kitchen.”
    Porcellus mopped nervously at the last traces of spilled sugar.
    “Shall I suggest to Jabba that the Weequay be punished?”
    Fortuna’s voice was a dangerous purr.
    “Thrown to the rancor? A little quick, perhaps, though Jabba is fond of the spectacle… Lowered into the pit of the brachno-jags, perhaps?
    They’re small in themselves, but a hundred can strip a being’s bones in, oh, five or six hours. One alone–if that being is tied up quite firmly-can take four or five days.”
    He smiled evilly. “Would that be a fitting punishment for one who tampers with His Excellency’s food?”
    “Er…” said Porcellus. “I don’t